"I and You” is a new play dealing with adolescence, illness and the poetry of Walt Whitman. NY1’s Roma Torre filed the following review.
Poems, like teenagers are not easy to read at first blush. Lauren Gunderson's reflective play "I And You" makes that abundantly clear. It centers on a young woman battling a life-threatening illness and a fellow high-school student bent on introducing her to the wonders of Walt Whitman.
Caroline is a high-school senior who can't go to school. Needing a liver transplant, she is stuck in her attic bedroom surrounded by the comforts of childhood and her burgeoning adolescence. The isolation has made her pretty testy.
So when fellow student Anthony pays an unexpected call, she's none too happy. He is a bright affable guy with an appreciation of poetry and jazz, passions that he wants to share with his school mate. They have been assigned to a group project on Whitman's "Leaves Of Grass.” But Caroline is clearly not interested.
But of course, Whitman's lyrical ode to self-expression turns out to be irresistible and the dramatic conclusion seemed pretty obvious - or so you might think.
A climactic shocker upends those earlier assumptions. Until that point, the kids' behavior struck me as rather forced and slightly contrived. In addition, while the twist ending explained quite a lot, the unnatural shifts in tone and extreme reactions would have worked better if we had had some hints of the revelation to come.
Director Sean Daniels delivers an otherwise stirring production.
Michael Carnahan's wonderfully detailed set design gives us a window into Caroline's unsettled head.
Kayla Ferguson fills out the difficult role with animated intensity.
Likewise Reggie D. White with his deeply felt performance.
Gunderson recognizes that adolescence is itself a sort of twilight zone, and Whitman's cosmic poetry fits right into her themes. It's a compelling enough conceit that dramatically shouldn't have needed a bombshell to make it fly.